DMAT First Responders Reflect on Their First-Ever Deployment to New York City on September 11, 2001

       

    By Emily Gaudette   

    Two years after the National Disaster Medical System established Disaster Medical Assistant Teams across the nation, the Massachusetts division was called into action on September 11, 2001. 9/11 was the team’s very first deployment since its inauguration in 1999.

    Dr. Ronald Gaudette was recruited onto MA D-1 by Team Command, Dr. Susan M. Briggs,  as a pharmacist. Little did he know that his first deployment would be on American soil.

              “I had no idea what I was getting into on the way down there. None of us did,” Gaudette said.

    Within a few hours of the towers collapsing, President George W. Bush authorized the Stafford Act, which aided the local efforts of the first responders in New York City by mobilizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to call upon 12 emergency support functions—including Disaster Medical Assistant Teams. By noon, the Massachusetts division had received the call for deployment.

    The team flew by military aircraft from Bedford, Massachusetts to the Fort Stewart Airbase in Newburgh, New York, arriving at 5:30 a.m., Sept. 12. They arrived at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan around 11 a.m. only to evacuate due to a bomb scare. Later, the team was being driven to the cordoned-off area in sheriff S.U.Vs only to be stopped when another section of the South Tower fell. It took eleven hours for Gaudette’s team to arrive on site.

    Ground Zero was so unstable that no vehicles could get in to bring in medical equipment. The first responders needed to find a way to do it.

“We formed a human chain with, uh, oh God, people we never even met before, and we moved our gear from that particular street area into the Borough Manhattan Community College quad. It was all cement. We were all gathered around in a circle and Dr. Briggs—Susan Briggs—said, ‘this is what we trained for.’ It was about, just early morning, 1:00, 1:30 in the morning, and we had slowly dragged a lot of things—IV poles, gauze, others, across the street into the Borough Manhattan Community College,” Gaudette said.

Once all the equipment was in the cordoned-off area, Gaudette and his longtime friend and professional partner, the now late Dr. Emilio “Mel” Mastrodomenico, only had four hours to organize large duffle bags filled with medications. The goal was to get the first medical tent ready for “0700.” They organized in the dark, pointing headlights at the floor to try to read names of the medications.

    For the first few days, Gaudette was not allowed off Ground Zero because they needed a pharmacist. He worked 12-hour shifts and slept on a three-legged cot in a classroom. The only pharmacist on site, he had to keep what is called the Perpetual Inventory for Narcotics, or PIN sheet. This means he kept track of the controlled substances, monitoring which ones and how many were used. Even in an emergency, the DMATs needed to be accountable for narcotic use.

              “Every morning, they would call me to the auditorium to collect medications donated by the [pharmaceutical companies],” he said.

     He grouped the medications by therapy request: antihypertensive, antibiotic, respiratory, etc. He also created a “fast-mover” table that was organized from A-Z for anyone to access at the different medical stations. These contained water, bandages, Pepto-Bismol, and other basic-need items for a quick grab-and-go.

    After 9/11, Gaudette and Briggs decided to develop a streamlined system for medication organization. They worked on a design using 3 x 5” Velcro backings with clear, plastic bags for the medication that were easily removable from a DRASH, a deployable rapid assembly surgical hospital tent.

    By the morning of September 13, the team was tasked with taking over all care. They treated firefighters, social workers, police, and volunteers. Many first responders did not bring their own medications for antihypertension, diabetes, or high cholesterol. Gaudette was able to assess patients and deliver their needs using a device called a Palm PDA, a Personal Digital Assistant, that contained a library of medication references. It even had pictures of medicine that he could show to the patients to identify what they needed.

    As overwhelming as it was, Gaudette credits Team Command Susan Briggs for keeping the team together despite the emotional, physical, and mental difficulty of their task. Dedicated to the emergency effort, Briggs is celebrating her 37^th year at Team Command. She currently holds the title as advisor to the director of the National Medical System of the United States.

     She said that this mission was different from other disasters because there were no survivors at the point of impact.

     That wasn’t what they expected at the time. Gaudette recalled her saying, “Alright, we don’t know what our mission is going to be, but we may be sent to LaGuardia airport to put tags on bodies, if anyone is uncomfortable about that, step outside the circle.”

     Gaudette recalled knee surgeon David Lowe replying: “Dr. Briggs, we’re here as long as you need us.”

     Nobody stepped outside the circle.

    Despite the gravity of the situation, Briggs said first responders respected the remains of those who had died. There were no whole dead bodies recovered; the Disaster Mortician Team would carry body parts on paper plates to the mortuary to get tested, handling them with the utmost care.

              “It was a real honor being able to work there, despite the fact that so many people died… just helping the rescuers to make any effort to find any existing victims,” she said.

    Briggs’s DMAT saw 400-500 rescue injuries a day. For serious injuries, a team of people had to hand-carry injured persons on a stretcher over a mile to ambulances that could not be reached on Ground Zero.

    Along with the rest of their team, Briggs and Gaudette are still haunted by the images of  “The Pile,” the smell of computers burning, and the gaping hole that had swallowed the towers and left death in their place. Briggs was “angry someone would do this on our soil.”

“They didn’t care how many people they killed. And there was nothing we could do to stop it. The destruction was amazing,” she said.

A DMAT volunteer was knee-deep in ashes outside of the deli, where one of the medical stations was set up. She missed her graduation to be in New York. Retired firefighters and active firefighters refused to leave Ground Zero. Their brothers were “under the pile.” Nobody hesitated to jump straight into danger to help. For Gaudette, he was grateful to help.

“One thing, you know, I believe that God afforded me gifts, that I was very very fortunate to have the chance to be put to work,” he said.